Gas cigarette lighters



United States Patent US. Cl. 431-277 1 Claim ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A gas cigarette lighter having a manually actuatable spark wheel and a flint associated therewith, a fuel contairier, a burner nozzle, and a fuel duct leading from said fuel container to said nozzle. Associated with said fuel duct is a shut off valve and a reduction valve. The latter comprises an elastic plug having an inner end which consists of a porous material and penetrates into the fuel duct. The porous material is pressed against the wall of the. fuel duct by means of an adjusting screw which is accessible from the outside and has its inner end in engagement with the plugs.

This invention relates to an improvement in gas cigarette lighters having a container for a vaporizable fuel and a fuel duct which leads from the container to a nozzle and is provided with a manually adjustable. reduction valve with a plug which at least partly consists of rubber or another elastical material and penetrates into the fuel duct through a bore opening into an orifice in the wall of the fuel duct, and substantially blocks the free cross sectiorial area thereof and is actuatable by means of an adjust ing screw which is accessible from the outside and is threaded into said bore and the inner end of which presses against said plug.

Manually adjustable reduction valves for gas lighters are previously known in a plurality of different embodimerits, one more expensive and complicated than the other. Above all in connection with the appearance of so called disposable or throw away lighters, i.e. lighters having no replenishable fuel store, many attempts have been made to simplify, and thereby reduce the costs of, the reduction valve and other members of the lighter. A result of these attempts is represented by the reduction valve disclosed in the ,Swedish patent specification 199,419.

The principal object of the invention is to provide simple, inexpensive and reliable reduction valve means which may .be mounted in a gas cigarette lighter at very low costs. This object is attained through the lighter according to the invention, in which the end of said plug remote from said screw is comprised of a washer of a porous material which is pressed by said screw against the inner wall of said fuel duct with an adjustable pressure, for controlling the blocking degree of said plug.

Further features of the invention will become evident from the annexed drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 is a vertical longitudinal section through a cigarette lighter according to the invention;

FIG. 2 is a partial view on a larger scale and partly in section through the valve body and its associated adjusting screw;

FIG. 3 is a vertical, axial longitudinal section on a larger scale through the gas duct on line III-III in FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 is a cross sectional view along the line IV-IV in FIG. 3.

, FIGS. Sa-Sc illustrate the manufacture of the elastic part of the plug used in the present invention.

The principal parts of the lighter according to FIG. 1

Patented Dec. 16, 1969 which is of the so called throw away type is a lighter body 1 which is preferably pressed or moulded from plastic and encloses the upper portion of a fuel container 2, and a bottom member. 4 which is preferably of transparent plastic and is tightly united with the lighter body 1. In the fuel container 2 there is provided a wick 6 which leads fuel, e.g. butane, in a liquid condition to the reduction valve described below and has its upper portion secured in a fuel duct which is generally designated 7 (FIGS. 3 and 4). In a bore in a partial partition 8 in the upper portion of the fuel container there is provided a flint tube 9 in which a flint is introduced which by a spring (not shown) is urged against a spark wheel 11 which is journalled on a stationary shaft 12. A key 14 for a shut off valve body 15 which is actuated through the intermediary of a stud 16 which like the valve body 15 is arranged in a bore 17 (FIG. 3), is held by the flint tube 9 and is maintained by a pressure spring 18 in the illustrated home position, in which the shut off valve is closed. Furthermore, the lighter is provided with a gas nozzle 19 and a flame shield 20 which protects the plastic from the heat of the flame.

The gas lighter according to the invention is provided with a reduction valve of a particular kind which will now be described with reference to FIGS. 2-4 and comprises a valve body or plug (FIG. 2) which is generally designated 22 and is together with an adjusting screw 23 introduced in a bore 24 which extends through the lighter body 1 in radial direction with respect to the fuel duct 7. The bore 24 which need not be threaded from the beginning since the preferably metallic screw 23 may cut its own threads in the material of the plastic body 1, which facilitates the manufacture, preferably has a plane bottom which is tangent to the wall of the gas duct 7 on that side thereof which is remote from the bore 24, and thus forms an enlargement "of the gas duct 7. The valve body or plug 22 consists of amain portion 22a of natural or synthetic rubber or a similar elastic material, a washer 2211, eg of double-folded felt or a similar porous material having some elasticity, and preferably a foil 220 of aluminum, glossy paper or another material which has a lower friction coefficient than the rubber and protects it against wear when the screw 23 is rotated. The plug 22 may be inserted in the bore 24 either as one unit, or alternatively its components 22b, 22a, 22c may be punched in individually and successively. In its inserted position the plug 22 fills substantially the entire cross sectional area of the fuel duct, and the rubber body 22a and preferably also the felt washer become somewhat compressed when being punched into the bore. The washer 22b abuts that side of the wall of the fuel duct 7 which is remote from the bore 24, that it abuts the bottom of the hole 24, against which it is passed with an adjustable and elastic pressure by the screw 23 through the intermediary of the rubber body 22a. The latter is preferably punched out from a rubber sheet, which may have a thickness of 2 mm., by means of a punch, which has a little larger diameter than the bore 24, and a corresponding die. Rubber bodies manufacured in this manner become somewhat thinner centrally than at their ends, that is get .a concave mantle surface. The manufacture of such rubber plugs which are slightly hyperboloidal in their unstrained, expanded condition is illustrated in FIGS. 5a-5c.

From the preceding disclosure it is evident that I have provided, through the present invention, an exceedingly simple reduction valve for gas lighters which valve may be manufactured and assembled at very low costs and in addition thereto permits a simple and accurate control of the blocking degree of the valve and thus the height of the flame.

The embodiment described above and illustrated in the drawing is, of course, to be regarded merely as a nonlimiting example and may as to its details be modified in several ways within the scope of the appended claim. In particular, the invention is not restricted to such plugs 22, the components of which are united with each other, e.g. through bonding or gluing, but also encompasses such plugs as are comprised of one single body, which may have varying material characteristics, particularly porosity, in its different portions, as well as plugs which are comprised of separate parts which form one unit through their location in the bore 24 and the pressure from the screw 23. The valve means according to the invention may also be applied to cigarette lighters of a type which differs from that illustrated in FIG. 1.

What I claim is:

1. In a gas cigarette lighter comprising a container (2) for a vaporizable fuel, a spark wheel (11) and a flint (9) associated therewith, a nozzle, a fuel duct (7) which leads from said container to said nozzle, a manually adjustable reduction valve associated with said fuel duct and comprising a plug (22) which partly consists of an elastic material (22a) which is so disposed in the fuel duct that it substantially blocks the free cross sectional area thereof, and an adjusting screw (23) which is associated with said plug and is threaded into a partly threaded bore (24), which is in communication with said fuel duct, has an inner end, which presses against said plug (22), and an outer end which is accessible from outside the lighter;

the improvement in which the inner portion of said partly threaded bore (24), which is smooth and in whichsaid plug (22) is located, traverses said fuel duct (7 substantially diametrically, has an inner end face which substantially forms a tangent to the circurnference of the fuel duct and in which the elastic part (22a) of said plug is slightly hyperboloidal in its unstrained, expanded condition and, like said inner, smooth 1 portion ofsaid bore, is substantially wider than that portion of the fuel duct into which said inner, smooth portion opens, and is supplemented at its outer end by a foil (220) of a glossy material for reducing the friction between the plug and the screw, and at its inner end by a washer (22b) comprised of a porous and fibrous material which is pressed by said screw against the inner wall of said fuel duct with an adjustable pressure, for controlling the blocking degree of said plug (22).

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,154,935 11/1964 Ayres 431344 X 3,165,908 1/1965 Kihara 431 3,222,894 12/1965 Gellman 43l-344 3,280,598 10/1966 Grop 431130 EDWARD J. MICHAEL, Primary Examiner U.S. c1. X.R. 

